Math is just a funny way of saying "I love you."
Over the course of my life, I've found that there are some tool sets that a lot of other people have which I lack completely. Interacting with children, for instance. I mean in any way. Even getting food orders at the restaurant I work at, I resent and dread when the parent nonchalantly turns to the child thing and says "Tell the waiter what you want." What follows is a growing look of terror on the child's face as the child discovers its "cuteness" schtick doesn't work on me, and teeth grinding false pleasantness from me as I start to think about all the other things I could be doing with these precious seconds. Only the child and I know about his little ruse but neither of wants our cover blown, so the child is silent, and I have to pretend to think this is adorable. It is far from it.
That copy of "The Complete Idiots Guide To Being Human: So You've Been Born, Now What?" that all of you got, well, my copy is missing whole chapters... and if I could find my copy I'd totally try to work out, through a process of elimination, which ones they are. But I think I left it in a box with my tax returns from 5 years ago. I am horrible at keeping documents. I am horrible at optimism. I lack all capacity to partake in preemptive medical/dental work -- I have always been of the "ignore it and it'll go away," school of self help and the rational part of my brain keeps sitting down, squeezing its eyes shut and saying to the rest of my brain, "Look, I'm going to say this ONE more time. It's very simple. Here are the steps you need to follow..." at this point the rest of my brain's gaze has started to wander and inevitably gets focused on a cute girl or a new book.
I'm also not very good at accepting faults, or even mere accidents, in others. I trust few people and those I DO trust seem to be a dwindling herd. I figure this is my fault, my perfection standards are way too jacked up to be anything but capricious and arbitrary. And I can accept that within myself fairly easily. Sure, I'd like to change myself and grow into a more benign character, and I write myself little encouraging post-it notes all over my room, like "People aren't perfect," "Patience may not be a virtue, but it is a tactic," "Is it REALLY that awful?" and immediately after reading them I'll purge my list of transgressions and laugh at my silly neurosis for all of 20 minutes. Then it'll be back. "Are they doing this on purpose?" "How could that have been an accident." So, yeah. I guess my empathy gland is deficient and I'm a little unwilling to do boring maintenance on important shit.
Maybe if I started putting post-it notes in the kitchen...
That copy of "The Complete Idiots Guide To Being Human: So You've Been Born, Now What?" that all of you got, well, my copy is missing whole chapters... and if I could find my copy I'd totally try to work out, through a process of elimination, which ones they are. But I think I left it in a box with my tax returns from 5 years ago. I am horrible at keeping documents. I am horrible at optimism. I lack all capacity to partake in preemptive medical/dental work -- I have always been of the "ignore it and it'll go away," school of self help and the rational part of my brain keeps sitting down, squeezing its eyes shut and saying to the rest of my brain, "Look, I'm going to say this ONE more time. It's very simple. Here are the steps you need to follow..." at this point the rest of my brain's gaze has started to wander and inevitably gets focused on a cute girl or a new book.
I'm also not very good at accepting faults, or even mere accidents, in others. I trust few people and those I DO trust seem to be a dwindling herd. I figure this is my fault, my perfection standards are way too jacked up to be anything but capricious and arbitrary. And I can accept that within myself fairly easily. Sure, I'd like to change myself and grow into a more benign character, and I write myself little encouraging post-it notes all over my room, like "People aren't perfect," "Patience may not be a virtue, but it is a tactic," "Is it REALLY that awful?" and immediately after reading them I'll purge my list of transgressions and laugh at my silly neurosis for all of 20 minutes. Then it'll be back. "Are they doing this on purpose?" "How could that have been an accident." So, yeah. I guess my empathy gland is deficient and I'm a little unwilling to do boring maintenance on important shit.
Maybe if I started putting post-it notes in the kitchen...